April 24, 2009

Isn't it funny how fast those wonderful vacations become such distant memories in an instant? *SNAP* you are right back to reality in a heartbeat! Oh well! it's all good! I am happy to be home again,and happy to be working again! Our vacation honestly was a really fun and relaxing time...we saw a ton of great things, wonderful museums, the ocean, friends, Fun shops, and had a Bunch of great food! Oh MY! SO here are a few quick pictures before I race out the door to work.....My first day back in 2 weeks! (i'm such a slacker)ha ha! ahh! the open road!through hills and valleys, and small mountains....in fact some of the roads were so hilly and mountainous, that I kind of freaked out a little, so I brought my beads to keep me occupied, and my head DOWN, so I wouldn;t pass out! (i have some control issues when it comes to not being behind the wheel) hee hee!I did manage to make some nice new bracelets that were inspired from the trip, and the colors.....I am calling them my "roadtrip" collection.I am hoping to have pictures of them loaded up to the website later this afternoon! whoo-hoo! I loved how green everything was down there,

and how even the old and junky things when covered with wisteria looked lovely. the ocean was beautiful of course....

my kids enjoyed playing in the sand

My son especially had fun playing with those flying rats pretending they were carrying him away.... in fact my people like to be silly ALLL of the time, which of course cracks me up. here we are at the museumit was really a lovely place, despite the goofy sceneryher impression oh man, please help me. :)

one of these places had a bug section that was FILLED with live bugs that completely grossed me out, (thankfully not this large) :) but I will say it was fascinating.

they even had snacks for you to buy afterwards!

o.k, WHO would eat those?!!!

yikes!

anyways, one of them had a fantastic butterfly house with lovely little butterflies flying all around.. more my speed.

a sweet little blue morpho came by to visit! it was really friendly!

we visited several kid friendly places...

one of them had a display that I absolutely thought was so cute!

I wish I could have a life sized peas and carrot play room in MY house! :)

now speaking of food, we ate a ton of it! from low-brow diner fare to upscale modern mexican.

all of it 100% yummy!

cool irish Pubs.... ;)

fresh biscuits and hush puppies, sweet tea, and micro brews,

ribs, black eyed peas and collard greens for that southern experience at a BBQ joint, YUM!

delicious fish tacos near the beach....

in charming small towns

where I saw an even yummier life guard!

man! I contemplated flinging myself in the ocean, just because! ha ha!

ok, back to food.

its all i think about. hee hee

I had grits for the first time! OHMIGOSH!

I have found nirvana. I LOVE grits! who knew!?

we ate these at a waffle house in the middle of nowhere

there is something so charming about it's retro-no frills atmosphere. I loved it. never been there before!

We also had some fantastic upscale food, like this one place that made an AMAZING margarita, all from scratch, using fresh squeezed limes! oh my word!

plus we had a few of our own, poolside at my husbands apartment down in raleigh, (when he travels he stays here)

sneaky devil.

:)

when we werent eating or lounging, we were out shopping at some great little places!

Loved the shop NOFO, it was in an old piggly wiggly grocery store that they revamped! SO cool!

April 09, 2009

Hey Ya'll! thanks SO much for all of the nice comments, and commiseration regarding the last post! it really meant a lot to me! It's so nice to have you all around!!I am starting to feel Much better, not completely out of the woods yet of course, but I really do think I feel a change happening....so if you are suffering like me, look into that book, it seems to work. I still managed to put eardrops in my daughters eyeballs the other day, mind you, because yes, I am THAT foggy.nice mom huh? thank god she's fine, and not blind. but shooey that was a bad one. please don't call the department of social services on me, I promise I am a good mom! :) so besides THAT event, the clouds are slowly parting, and I am making a concerted effort to focus. I have had a lot more energy lately, and been able to get a bunch of things done at home, and on the shop front. Running around like a crazy person here and there.So today i will share a few photos with you before I blast on outta here!
We have decided to take a spur of the moment road trip down to North
Carolina, Raleigh to be specific, then the ocean, and various stops
in between!
My husband had me google Opryland.....and I said "are you kidding me?"
I would rather see the largest ball of twine, or the mystery spot,
than go there. no offense, if you are into that kind of thing, it's
just not my bag.
I like more of the cheesy,campy,kitschy kinds of places, and the cool spots too of course.
feel free to shoot me a message if you know of any fun places I need to
see on the road travelling down south from Michigan! I would love to see what's
on your mind!
We literally decided to do this yesterday, so needless to say I am a
little harried, but I don;t care, I think it will be fun. the kids
are REALLY excited, and it will be good to relax and take it easy.
Ian and I used to do these kinds of things spur of the moment trips when we
were younger and had no kids, we would just pick up and take off.
usually it ended in disaster, but we always had a great story that
came out of it. so it will be interesting what we come up with! I'll
keep you posted of course. So this week... I managed to clean my house, now you can actually see my side of the bedroom floor, I cleaned up all of the books and magazines from the floor, I don;t know about you people, but I CANNOT throw any of those out until I scour every nook and cranny of them, tearing out pages for inspiration!do you like my computer cord? o.k. aesthetically, that is REALLY bothering me, just to let you know. please avert your eyes. Now of course there are some magazines that i still keep, too precious to let go, so i have them neatly filed now. My daughters room is all picked up and tidy too...her room is ALWAYS a disaster, but when it's tidy it is so pleasant....look! there's a FLOOR! everyone wants to hang out there!little people, AND furry ones too! ;)gosh I am going to miss that dog of mine to bits!we spoon every night together. my little faithful companion. :(I wanted to bring her, but it's wouldn't be good for her if we stopped to sight see and left her in the car. So she is staying behind at the dog sitters house.she spoons with that woman when i am away. little traitor.ha ha ha! anyways, so this past week when I wasn't cooking, cleaning, burning my daughters eyeballs, I was out vintage shopping and scoring the cutest things!!! OHMIGOSH!I had the best luck. of course at this time of year, i think in pastel candy colors...... I found the most gorgeous little tea set. it only has one cup, and a few plates, for which I paid a pretty penny, but I could NOT help myself, it was too darling. plus it's really, old. I want to learn more about it actually. anyone familiar with it? this one is mine all mine. found a home in my swedish looking cabinet. :)vintage pyrex in colors to make you swoon.little juice (or shot) glasses, ha ha ha!orange juice, OR vodka would look fabulous in these no? ;)

pretty little butter yellow ceramic USA coffee pot, thankyouverymuch

little vintage toy truck in the perfect color of course.wishing it came life size

lone pepper shaker, but isn;t it cute? and who doesn't just LOVE their lives a little bit spicier? ha ha ha. pretty little vintage bed in a lovely robins egg blue.Pearl had to check it out of course, see if it passes inspection. Now normally I would paint these vintage beds in some vibrant color, but this one, well....since I am in my very swedish mood lately, it felt just PERFECT the way it was.....with a nice little patina to it, some rust, and tiny handpainted details on the spindles.......so it has been left alone. and since we just sold that cute red bed yesterday, we needed a bed right away, So literally within hours of having the red bed gone, we put this one in it's place, which of course caused a chain reaction, and we needed to do a shop overhaul. SO here are some new photos of some of the transformations....the bed in its new resting place for now!pretty little thing that it is! i'm still here tweaking things before I leave, because I am a tad obsessive like that! hee hee. heres the current front room nowcolorful, vibrant, loaded with rugs! come buy some...they are lovely!! :)middle room now...set the table, doesn't it make you want to just fry up some eggs and have a little brunch? we have some new dish soaps in, and cute little chef/soap packages tons of tableclothssoaps, stuff, tons of it. plus our fine number mugs are in from christopher Jagmin! we love him! numbers 1-8. each cup priced at $21 a cup. they will be online when I come back, but for now, they are available at the shop of you want to stop by and scoop one up. SO on that note, I am out the door, off to race out and pack easter baskets for THE CAR, and then head home to pack! I hope you all have a lovely weekend, and lovely spring break if you are off like we are. take care, and thanks again for all of your nice comments, it really means the world to me!XOXOXOc.see you in a week! oh by the way, for those of you still in town, the shop will still be open, gayle will be working for us, Ann will be in Boca Grand, Florida on an island (i secretly hate her. ha ha ha ha! totally kidding)Internet orders will ship when I return on April 20th!

April 01, 2009

Well, I got my Blood test results back from the lab, and evidently I am suffering from one of those mysterious hoodoo-voodoo diseases, Chronic fatigue syndrome. Doesn't every woman deal with that? c'mon! Seriously, this has been very debilitating, I am perpetually in a fog....like most moms, but i have been having a REALLY hard time just functioning.anyways, I guess I was exposed to the Epstein/Barr virus years ago, and in some people, certain factors, or stresses in their lives can activate these things and make the disease flare up, So evidently I am in a little flare up mode right now. My numbers were abnormally high, when i asked what i could do about it, well, she really didn't have an answer.

great.

I wanted something, like most Americans, that could be instantly cured with a pill. I ended up going to my little favorite neighborhood store Plum Market, and asked one of the people in the medicine aisle if there was anything on the shelves for me. well, the woman was REALLY helpful, and gave me a book to read, and a bottle of energy vitamin powder specifically geared to this problem. I have to tell you that I am not one of those people that is interested in reading those kinds of books, but I started reading it, and couldn't put it down! it was fantastic, and I have learned so much! So if you too are dealing with this,check out the book "from Fatigued to fantastic" it is quite informative. I am going to head out to the vitamin store today and buy some of the things they recommend and see if it has any impact. SO these past few days, not only have I been trying to stimulate my brain in various ways, but I have also been doing my OWN version of economic stimulus and SHOPPING!!!! Whoo-hoo!I love to shop. funny thing is, sometimes I will just buy things purely because I think they are cute. even though I may never even use them.....case in point.kumquats.what the heck? I don't even know how you are supposed to eat these.....do you peel them? eat them whole? who knows.but dang! don't they just LOOK so sunshiney and cheery in that bowl?! Fiona sampled one, but it was a little too tart for her tastes.....gosh that child just kills me.My son, jackson cracks me up too because he calls them "kwanzaloos".that kid will botch a name like nobodies business, and it always is good for some laughs.anyways.... while we are at it buying silly little produce because they're cute, i was curiously drawn to kooky pasta shapes too......little nests... (hello! Spring, birds nests....)and adorable little circle shaped pasta...paired with fresh tomatoes, basil and garlic! YUMMMM! I have been doing a lot of cooking lately, and using healthier ingredients, incorporating a ton of fresh spinach.

well, I have to say that when I tried adding fresh spinach to my kid's pasta, BLENDING it in the blender in an effort to slip it in undetected, the result was, well, kind of alarming. MOM!!!! this looks like baby poop!!!

So FYI, if you want pasta that is visually and aesthetically unappealing, add spinach and blend.the fact that they actually ATE it, and LIKED it, made it all worthwhile in the end though. So since we are having all of these little sit-down healthy dinners... why not add a lovely little bouquet to the table too!flowers at this time of year really help to bring the sunshine in, when it's not so warm outside quite yet.... We have had a bit if rain this past weekend, and chillier temps.....so we spent some time indoors at the newly opened UMMA (university of Michigan art museum) it was FANTASTIC!!! we're so happy that it's opened again to the public after 3 years of being closed!!they have great works of art there, many modern pieces, along with a nice collection of Picasso's and other very well known artists...they also have a really nice section on architecture.....I am always fascinated by these little tiny scaled models..... the different interpretations of trees.....because I am weird like that, and notice those things.anyways! the space is very open, modern, and lovely, so if you have a chance, GO! So since we were downtown, I thought we should walk around campus, and check out some of my favorite places like urban Outfitters, and this new thrift shop on state street called"the Get-up"I really like it there! they play great music, and have their vintage goods very artfully arranged. the selection of stuff, VERY well chosen and cool. I also visited a new shop near trader Joes called "lucky's vintage" or something like that. the guy was VERY nice, and had some great merchandise.....i bought a cool green polyester shirt...that I think will look nice paired with jeans, a t-shirt and some great accessories.... I also found some other fun pieces there that i plan to re-work...adding beads and charms to this one....and doing something with these... and since I have been so into accsessories lately I found myself a cute pair of shoes that feel very "antropologie" in style minus the hefty price tag.i love them!i also bought myself a little hat....so I can just roll out of my bed and hit the road! ha ha!because even though I have been tired beyond all get-out,we have been doing a ton of stuff lately....hitting the soccer field for my little Fiona's start to spring soccer....my girl got my favorite number again! whoo-hoo!my boy starts his long-course swimming session on Monday...goofballsso like you, we are busy, busy, running around like crazy people, when we aren't lying in bed of course hee hee! ;) lots of things on the horizon...so keep your eyes peeled....we have a road trip planned, and new merchandise coming in like these fabulous little numbers.... SO on that note, I will let you go... YOU are probably just as exhausted reading this! ha ha! So if I can leave you with ONE extra piece of information before I go....that is, Hit the road, do some shopping, buy a piece of vintage goods, whatever, your small part helps stimulate this economy, seriously. it doesn't take much. and we can all do our part.I know I am !! ;)have a GREAT day!and thanks for stopping by as always!xoxoxo

Disclaimer of sorts...:)

I want you to know up front I am TERRIBLE with email! So If I don't respond to your comments please don't take it personally.
You would literally have to be on fire for me to
pay attention, yes, I am that flaky.
Just know that I appreciate every word you say, and the fact that you took the time to write me, I just may
not have the time to write you back.